such
a House of Commons it is almost certain that there would have been a
persecution of the Dissenters; it is not easy to understand how there
could have been an union with Scotland; and it is not improbable that
there would have been a restoration of the Stuarts. Those parts of
our constitution therefore which, in recent times, politicians of
the liberal school have generally considered as blemishes, were, five
generations ago, regarded with complacency by the men who were most
zealous for civil and religious freedom.

But, while Whigs and Tories agreed in wishing to maintain the existing
rights of election, both Whigs and Tories were forced to admit that
the relation between the elector and the representative was not what it
ought to be. Before the civil wars the House of Commons had enjoyed
the fullest confidence of the nation. A House of Commons, distrusted,
despised, hated by the Commons, was a thing unknown. The very words
would, to Sir Peter Wentworth or Sir Edward Coke, have sounded like
a contradiction in terms. But by degrees a change took place. The
Parliament elected in 1661, during that fit of joy and fondness which
followed the return of the royal family, represented, not the deliberate
sense, but the momentary caprice of the nation. Many of the members were
men who, a few months earlier or a few months later, would have had
no chance of obtaining seats, men of broken fortunes and of dissolute
habits, men whose only claim to public confidence was the ferocious
hatred which they bore to rebels and Puritans. The people, as soon as
they had become sober, saw with dismay to what an assembly they had,
during their intoxication, confided the care of their property, their
liberty and their religion. And the choice, made in a moment of frantic
enthusiasm, might prove to be a choice for life. As the law then stood,
it depended entirely on the King's pleasure whether, during his reign,
the electors should have an opportunity of repairing their error.
Eighteen years passed away. A new generation grew up. To the fervid
loyalty with which Charles had been welcomed back to Dover succeeded
discontent and disaffection. The general cry was that the kingdom was
misgoverned, degraded, given up as a prey to worthless men and more
worthless women, that our navy had been found unequal to a contest with
Holland, that our independence had been bartered for the gold of France,
that our consciences were in danger of being again s